HACKER Q&A
📣 bostonvaulter2

How can I get better at writing?


Writing feels like something that I might be able to enjoy, but choosing every word feels like a chore and I become frustrated because it feels like I am not expressing myself adequately. I sit down to write a blog post, but I'm just unable to coherently get my thoughts out onto the page and I find that I have difficulty stringing sentences together in a way that is engaging to the audience.

Has anyone else dealt with this? How were you able to improve?


  👤 capybara_2020 Accepted Answer ✓
I am also in a similar place. The things I have seen work for me.

First, sign up for a Grammarly premium account. It identifies easy fixes, and you do not even have to think about punctuations. And it identifies places where your words are redundant. You start noticing patterns. I tend to use "really" a lot. So being aware of that helps me change my writing style. Grammarly also points out better words to use, but I have found it works only 10-20% of the time. That is still better than nothing.

Then try cutting down your text by 50% and then again by 50%. I found my text to be wordy, but cutting it down helps clarify the text. And editing is more important than writing. I always find it easy to write the first draft then spend hours editing, which I never used to do before.

And then read a ton, especially fiction books. They seem to use exciting(Grammarly changed "interesting" to exciting here) words. Keep notes of what has an impact. And then you can use it in your text.

I hope that helps.


👤 Fricken
The quality of my writing goes up when I'm actively reading quality literature. Lately I've just reading internet junk so my prose sucks.

👤 GianFabien
Do you have the same difficulty when speaking to somebody?

If not, then just talk out loud and write down what you say. Engaging writing reads like a person to person conversation. Yes, it's a bit like the rubber ducking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging